Empirical Evidence?...the gap between subjective and objective

Other publications included specifications that to this day, prove useful for many.  

The measurements in Stereophile magazine back up the extensive listening tests. Not like ASR who barely listens to the equipment. I carefully read the measurements in Stereophile and have been since Stereophile started taking measurements. However, I can stare at the numbers all day long but unless the product has major flaws the measurements don't tell me how the product sounds. On top of that I don't think ASR serves the audiophile community, it serves the mass electronics market. I have never seen a statement loudspeaker tested and every speaker JBL makes gets a recommendation and I have only heard a few huge JBLs that I might live with, the L200 being one of them. How do you measure, scale and power? Rear firing drivers? Room interaction (frequency response isn't the whole story).  Like Stereophile, I listen first. 

I Studied under Julian.

Very cool. I read Stereo Review for decades, it wasn't until the underground Stereophile rag came out that I saw a different way, but I learned a lot from the old man. 

Audio was a quite different pursuit in the 1960s and 1970s.

Maybe 1950- to the late 1950s but by the 60s, people were pursuing hi-fidelity to play their new stereo records. It's been the same ever since, buy the gear that sounds best. 

electronics (amps, preamps, DACs, streamers) have become largely transparent to the source, irrespective of price... 

I could not disagree more. 

The speaker that measures better always sounds better!

What measures better? Measurements of the large Magnepans don't measure well at all (or any dipole) but that doesn't stop them from sounding very good if not world class when you are talking 20s and 30s. 

 From Julian Hirsch's "Stereo Review" 

I don't want to be unkind but Hirsch was deaf. Even back in his day, every piece of gear had a different sound. 

...and then there is this...

Cary Audio Design CAD-805 monoblock power amplifier Measurements | Stereophile.com

He told me that he did, in fact, hear clear differences in power amplifiers, but that he did not value the differences as significant in the context of an audio system.

At the time he was the best source of information about audio gear but he did his listeners a disservice if he heard differences but suggested they were not significant. It's better to let the listener decide if they are significant.